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On Wednesday April 6, 2011, thousands of Mexicans in various cities throughout the country and some abroad, such as New York, Buenos Aires and Madrid, took to the streets to protest against violence. Some demanded the resignation of President Felipe Calderón, as they believe his strategy in the fight against crime and drug trafficking has exacerbated the bloodshed, according to reports by the BBC.

Citizens’ reactions quickly appeared in various blogs. Víctor Hernández [es], whose opinion appears in the blog Michoacán en Resistencia (Michoacán in Resistance), celebrated the fact that the marches were organised by ordinary citizens and were not the result of a media campaign orchestrated by some political faction:

I applaud the fact that the march against violence that will take place today in various states around the country is authentically grass-roots. It was called for by the writer Javier Sicilia, but it was organised and publicised by the people, mainly middle-class people, through social networks and with no help from the media.

For the first time the middle class is organising itself to demand a stop to the violence without being called on to be part of a right-wing media stunt. The people did it for themselves.

Javier Hernández Alpízar [es], for the blog Zapateando2, reproduced part of the open letter that Sicilia addressed to the government and the criminals, a document that was released before the protests. Hernández Alpízar pointed out that:

The letter, which has come to embody the indignation of many, expresses in powerful and clear terms a view that many citizens now subscribe to: “We are fed up with you, politicians – and when I say politicians I am not referring to anyone in particular, but rather to a large number of you, including those who make up the parties – because in your struggles for power you have torn the fabric of the nation, because in the middle of this ill thought-out, poorly executed and badly run war, this war that has put the country in a state of emergency, you have been incapable – thanks to your stinginess, your fighting, your miserable scheming, your struggles for power – of reaching the consensus that the nation needs to find the unity without which this country will have no way out (…)”

Journalist and blogger Jenaro Villamil [es] reported that more than 10,000 people marched in Mexico City. For Villamil, the reason for the protest is clear:

Poeticised, politicised and outraged, more than 10 thousand people of all social classes marched from the Palace of Fine Arts to the Town Square of Mexico City to protest against the effects of the war on drug trafficking, while another 8 thousand citizens, lead by the poet and journalist Javier Sicilia, protested in Cuernavaca, the epicentre of this simultaneous protest, sparked by the execution of 7 young people on the 28th of March in Temixco, Morelos.

“Out with Calderón! Out with Calderón!”, was the cry of the citizens who were called together in the last 36 hours and met in an improvised bandstand outside the National Palace in Mexico City’s Town Square. Similar calls were heard in Monterrey, Mérida, Guadalajara and dozens more cities where the cry of protest was heard.

Meanwhile, the administrator of the blog México Sí [es] (Yes Mexico) expressed some interesting questions relating to the marches, while making it known that his view is that the marches are against crime, not against the government, and wondered about the efficacy of these mobilisations:

Why the march? Have they just realised that organised crime exists and exerts idiotic violence against us? And what is the solution? Society taking to the streets to convey that they are against violence? I think that all this is pointless, violence is carried out by hitmen with no social education, people that usually have not studied, drug addicts, alocoholics, dehumanised people for whom murdering someone is like when a salesperson makes a sale. The hitmen are paid by their leaders, people who are not interested in society except for extracting money from us. At the time of the march the hitmen were drunk or on drugs, the bosses were happy because they had achieved the impact that they wanted, having the population terrorised. If people are scared, it will be easier to kidnap them and extort more money from them.

We cannot leave it to the government to totally solve the problem of insecurity, we must get involved and not wait until our sons get killed to start protesting.

These are just some of the opinions generated by the simultaneous marches of April 6 in Mexico. Hence it is clear that there is no consensus on the reasons for the march, who is being protested against and what will be achieved. However, it will be interesting to see how the country confronts the situation of insecurity and social unrest, with a view to next year’s electoral process in which a new president will be elected and the people will be able to decide in the ballot boxes, whether to confirm the rule of the party currently in power (which is conservative) or to give their trust to a candidate from some other political camp in the hope that the situation might improve.